


Hey darlin', do you gamble?

by traveller



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-30
Updated: 2010-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-15 13:14:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traveller/pseuds/traveller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><cite>Spring in Oceanside is mild and boring; Brad has two weeks liberty in April and the days stretch out like a desert highway in front of him, waiting to be explored. He takes a late afternoon dive a few miles off the coast, comes up to find a text from Nate's Google voice number. Orioles playing two in Atlanta starting Thursday, it reads. Bet for or against?</cite></p>
            </blockquote>





	Hey darlin', do you gamble?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whizzy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whizzy/gifts).



> for YAGKYAS 2010. angst, the gift that keeps on giving?

Spring in Oceanside is mild and boring; Brad has two weeks liberty in April and the days stretch out like a desert highway in front of him, waiting to be explored. He takes a late afternoon dive a few miles off the coast, comes up to find a text from Nate's Google voice number. _Orioles playing two in Atlanta starting Thursday_ , it reads. _Bet for or against?_

Brad towels his hair with one hand and thumbs out his reply with the other. He's got water in his left ear, and it doesn't want to clear, no matter how much he shakes his head, or pokes the corner of the towel in there. It's throwing off his balance. _Put it all on Atlanta._

The phone vibrates in his palm a moment later. _Confident. You know something I don't?_

 _Just a feeling,_ Brad sends back. When Nate doesn't reply, he switches to the Travelocity app and buys a ticket to Atlanta before heading back to the marina. The sun is melting into the Pacific behind him, a postcard scene of azure and gold. It's been a beautiful day.

*

There is a cluster of freckles on the back of Nate's right shoulder that forms the constellation Perseus; Brad connects the pattern with the tip of his middle finger. It's mid-morning and the sun is warming the room through the half-open drapes, the Atlanta smog making the narrow view hazy and orange. They hover on the edge of sleep, finished fucking for a little while but not quite ready to surrender, to lose time to rest.

Nate sighs and Brad can feel his heart slowing, his breath growing shallow.

Sometimes it all feels so simple.

The sun has moved to the other side of the sky when they wake again; Brad's stomach is growling and Nate has emails to answer, his phone dinging insistently from the nightstand. Nate works, wrapped in a hotel robe, while Brad showers and calls down to the concierge to get them reservations someplace quiet, preferably with lots of red meat on the menu.

"Nineteen-thirty," Brad tells Nate when he gets off the phone.

Nate snaps his laptop closed. "Plenty of time," he agrees, and reaches for the knot in Brad's towel.

*

September brings a trip east for training bullshit; Brad sends an email from his ancient Hotmail address, a relic kept active for no good reason, until it was needed one day for something like deniability. _Care to wager on the Chargers at Redskins? Late game Sunday._

Nate answers a half hour later, _need to look at odds Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry_ followed shortly by, _Sorry, can't take that bet. MNF?_

Monday night Brad will be wrapping up at Quantico and catching a red-eye out of National. He types back, _No good matchups on Monday._

It takes so long for Nate to answer that Brad gives up, goes for a long ride and then has dinner with his sister and the troglodyte she's considering for marriage. He and Sarah fight in flat, quiet voices in the parking lot after the meal while her insipid intended waits in the car; finally they hug it out and she leaves him with a kiss. He comes home in a foul mood, pours too many fingers of Scotch and curses himself when he gives in to the urge to check his email.

The message is stamped 9:13 pm, Eastern time: _Over/under 60 for Ravens at 49ers in 2 wks._ It's 11:48 Pacific now.

 _Over_ , Brad writes back. A moment later he gets a smiley in reply. He's disgusted and pleased and his headache's almost gone.

*

In San Francisco they fuck hard, scratch each other up and hold each other down; it's been months and Brad needs to _feel_ it, feel every touch and kiss and shove. He doesn't know what bullshit excuse Nate used to get out here for almost three days, doesn't care when Nate's so hot and tight around him, fingers digging purple bruises into Brad's biceps.

Now is everything, there's no past, no future, there's only teeth and spit and sweat and come, lips chapped in the dry heat of the hotel room.

Brad has stubble burn on his neck and on his thighs, fingernail welts on his hips, but as rough as they get he still tries not to leave his own marks behind. Nate pushes him sometimes, goads him into biting hard or holding too tight, and he gets it, he understands that in a sick way, the blood and the bruises are the only mementoes they'll ever take away from this. He understands.

"Dangerous," he whispers in Nate's ear as they lie on the damp sheets, pulses still pounding. He traces a scrape on Nate's shoulder with his tongue, and Nate grunts, bats at the back of Brad's head.

"Sometimes I don't care," Nate says, his voice hoarse. Brad closes his eyes and doesn't argue.

*

It's the usual scene at the annual Recon reunion barbecue slash football game slash knitting circle, the weekend before the Birthday Ball. The guys who can come won't miss it for the world, the ones who can't are remembered with a round of shots in their names. Each year there are more kids, and sometimes the women aren't the same ones as the year before; somebody always gets drunk and starts a fight and somebody always steps in and ends it before it gets serious. It's a shitshow, but it's family.

Ray looks exactly as he did the day that Brad met him with only the addition of glasses and another couple square feet of ink; he still vibrates with the same nervous energy and he still can't keep his goddamn mouth shut. He's got two girls and a boy running around, a woman who's way too good for him, and at the moment he's got Nate's wife Lisa cornered by the drink table, spinning some web of lies that she is too polite to struggle free of.

Nate leans back on the tree beside Brad, and Brad feels the warmth between their arms, Nate's skin so close. He cheats his little finger out and closes the gap for a moment, just to feel the goose bumps rise on the back of Nate's hand.

"Very nice that you could make it this year, sir," Brad says in a bland tone.

"Nothing makes me happier than seeing how our children have grown," Nate answers. He takes a long pull off his bottle of beer. "Mm. And I'm coming back again next weekend for that Chargers game we talked about."

"See, this is a prime example of how officers are helplessly, hopelessly full of shit," Ray says, appearing at Brad's three with Lisa in tow. "No offense, sir, but don't you have, like, several advanced degrees from motherfucking Ivy League institutions? And you can't even keep a simple football schedule straight?"

Shit. "Shut up, Person," he says, more heat than usual in his tone but it doesn't faze Ray in the least.

"—bye week next weekend," Ray is telling Lisa, whose face has gone very still. "Chargers aren't even playing."

Nate's fingers brush Brad's elbow when he moves, not intentionally but it still makes a shiver race up his spine. "Right," Nate says, pitching his beer toward the trash. "My bad. Lis, can I talk to you a minute?"

There's a pause that reminds Brad of being on the receiving end of mortar fire, that terrifying empty moment between the whistle and the strike. Then Lisa nods, and they walk away.

"Ray," Brad begins, but he can't even summon his usual invective.

"Homes, what?" Ray says, brow furrowing. "What did I do?"

*

November in Oceanside is mild and boring; Brad sits on the beach by his house and watches the surfers bob and paddle through the waves like seals in their black suits. There's a local kid out there who just keeps getting better and better, ripping up curls like petty laws of physics don't apply to her. She's a work of art. Maybe when he retires next year he'll spend more time in the water.

His phone buzzes on the sand next to him, a text from Nate's regular cell number.

 _I told her everything_ , it reads.

He stares at the water a little longer, then taps out his answer. _Bet on San Diego_. He reads it over four times before tapping send.

 _That's a serious wager,_ is the reply. Brad nods, swallows around the tighness in his throat and writes back again.

 _I've just got a feeling._


End file.
